Geneva/ Switzerland, September 15: Exiled Tibetans protested in front of the iconic “Broken Chair” in Geneva ahead of the 36th United Nations Human Rights Council session against the atrocities being committed by the Chinese Government and demanded independence for Tibet.

Dawa Norbu, representative of Tibetan community of Switzerland, said, “We are here to protest ahead of the 36th United Nations Human Rights Council Session meeting as we want to make them (UN members) aware of the prevailing human rights situation in Tibet. We want our voices to be heard and the reason is why UN is not acting against the Chinese government. We want to make them aware that what wrong Chinese Government has done in past few years.”

“Chinese have demolished Larung Gar Tibetan Buddhist Institute, one of the largest centres of Buddhist learning in Tibet. Now, they are trying to control the entire Buddhist institutes in Tibet,” Dawa Norbu added.

The protesters said the situation in Tibet is very dire at the moment. “Whatever development activities are being done by China in Tibet, it is being done for their own people. We are concerned about indigenous Tibetans who live there and have no freedom to speak, no freedom to practice their religion and arbitrary arrests are made and people who have been arrested have no access to the lawyers, they are languishing in jails for years and we are deprived of justice,” Norbu said.

Tibetans raised issues ranging from the gross violations of human rights in Tibet, the resurgence of immolation protests in Tibet to the 1949 China’s illegal occupation of Tibet.